gemfyre | I got spoiled

Yesterday was great, if I could have a day like that every few weeks it would be totally tolerable up here.

We had some guests last week - Sarah and Terry who left a couple of days ago, but invited us to visit them where they were staying at Cable Beach Club to share photos and just have a relaxing day off.

I was expecting just to be able to sit in an air-conditioned room all day and perhaps go for a swim. What I didn't know was that it was Sarah and Terry's anniversary and they wanted to celebrate.

First we had a tour of Cable Beach Club - very cushy, a bit plastic, which even they commented about but lovely. Then we looked at a few photos before going out to lunch... at the beachside cafe. "Pick whatever you want, don't look at prices."

I was going to have a seafood wok thing but then I was just going through the seafood platter and Sarah goes "I'll share one with you!" How could I refuse? This was one MASSIVE seafood platter. I did take a photo, can't post it yet though. We did leave behind one battered fish fillet, a bit of whitebait and some melon and salad greens but managed to eat all the rest. This platter contained - grilled bugs, grilled prawns, cold prawns, calamari, whitebait, battered reef fish fillets, oysters kilpatrick, scallops grilled on the shell... I think that's everything, along with fruit, salad greens and 3 dips - tartare, sweet chilli and a yummy mango dip.

We were offered desert but I couldn't fit another mouthful in.

After lunch Chris and I took them to the sewer ponds for a bit of birding. I got a new tick in the club carpark - White-Gaped Honeyeater. Great views at the ponds of a yellow wagtail as well as hundreds of masked lapwings, stilts, ducks and terns.

Then we came back for more photos and got changed for a swim. The plan was cocktails by the pool, unfortunately the bar at the pool had closed about 10 minutes earlier. Kinda bizarre but no huge loss, it was lovely just to have a swim in a pool that was the perfect temperature - not too warmed, but not freezing cold.

We intended to be home before dark, but we didn't leave the pool until dark. I had a shower in the nice, frog free chalet shower, and when I came out realised Sarah and Terry were trying to find somewhere not booked out to have dinner!

We ended up going to 2-Rice where we shared a bunch of dishes. Barramundi Laksa, Curried Scallops, Mandarin Duck, Green Paw-Paw salad. All but the duck were a little too hot for me so I mainly ate the duck (which was the dish I chose) and the plums that came with it which were yummy. We ended the night with a hot chocolate for me and coffees for the others.

And we saw a few boobook owls on the way home. I just fell into bed after all that.

I hope we have guests like that more often! Those two were just lovely people anyway. They thoroughly enjoyed sharing their anniversary with us and we throughly enjoyed having a cushy day!